Tag Archives: Ugandan Football

Effects Of Sleep On Football Performance.

Football performance is affected by a combination of technical (ability to execute football skills), tactical (decision making), physical (body’s ability to execute the demands of football), and mental (functioning of the brain to affect behaviour) factors.

Those four factors are greatly affected by the quality of sleep.

Football requires excellent coordination to enable players to perform the complex movements that are required to execute football skills, and the physical demands of football like agility, leaping, endurance, physical speed etc.

Quality sleep greatly improves the movement of neurotransmitters from the brain to perform reflex and non-reflex actions that affect coordination.

A football player that has quality sleep will have improved coordination and the opposite is also true.

Coordination greatly affects the quality of the above attributes which affect football fitness.

Football has many situations that constantly change every second which requires excellent learning ability and a good memory that enable quality decision making in responding to these situations.

Quality sleep greatly improves the brain’s capacity in learning and memory. Learning and memory are often described in terms of three functions; acquisition, consolidation and recall.

Deep sleep is what enables acquired information to get stored and consolidated in the long-term memory which enables the brain to recall that information when needed.

A player that consistently gets quality sleep is capable of being able to recall football situations and respond appropriately.

The three functions of learning and memory are greatly affected by the quality of sleep.

Football matches and training sessions are mentally and physically draining which requires recovery sessions to enable an individual to return to a state of being able to perform better in the next training session or match.

If all the other recovery methods like adequate hydration, timely nutrition, and quality stretching are followed then quality sleep enables the repairing process of muscles, bones and tissue to be complete.

This repairing process enables footballers to have more energy reserves the next day and to reduce the probability of getting muscle related injuries.

A football player that doesn’t get enough sleep will struggle to train or practice at their best capacity which affects performance in matches because you can only compete the way that you train/practice.

Football matches present problems that requires cognitive speed and reaction speed to solve. Cognitive speed and reaction speed are affected by concentration, attention, and focus.

Quality sleep greatly improves concentration, attention and focus which helps footballers to improve on the awareness required to respond faster to situations that happen during training and matches. This means; avoiding tackles that could get you injured, avoiding being reckless, and having the ability to punish mistakes made by opponents or recovering to correct the mistakes made by team mates.

A football player that doesn’t get enough sleep consistently would struggle to recognize how to solve the problems presented to them in football matches.

HOW TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF SLEEP?

It’s important for parents to monitor the quality of sleep especially in teenagers because that’s when they usually lose their discipline to sleep due to a lot of changes in their lives.

Footballers should target sleeping for 8-10 hours at night and avoid using electronic gadgets 60-90 minutes before sleep because the light from the gadgets affects the brain’s ability to release sleep hormones and the activity on the gadgets might cause stress or anxiety that will delay sleep.

For individuals that train in the evening, it’s important to target having a nap in the afternoon.

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Corporate governance holds the key to sustainable football success.

Governance is difficult to define but is easier to recognize in practice.

According to Investopedia, corporate governance is the structure of rules, practices, and processes used to direct and manage a company.

The purpose of corporate governance is to facilitate effective and prudent management that can deliver the long-term success of an organization.

If you asked any stakeholder within football in Uganda about the games’ biggest needs, 99% would give answers rotating around money in the form of funding from sponsors and the government.

To us, the success of football organizations starts with having money.

Every time that we need to solve a football-related problem, discussions rotate around acquiring money from sponsors yet, the lack of money or abundance of money on its own does not guarantee the failure or success of a football organization.

How many times has a new football club in Uganda started with a lot of public attention and funding only to fade and disappear without a trace? Countless times.

In 1992, a football club in Uganda sold a player directly to a football club in France for an estimated $180,000 yet 28 years later, the club doesn’t have a training ground, no website, and currently relies on cash handouts from well-wishers to survive.

That is a clear example that the lack of money is not a problem for football organizations in Uganda.

Football rotates around three arms of governance, sporting, and business.

Every activity that you observe within the game belongs to one of those three areas.

  • A graphical illustration showing how the three arms of football interact.

Of the three arms of football, governance is key to have good business and sporting activities of any football organization, without good governance, the business and sporting arms of any football organization would struggle to develop or wouldn’t be sustainable.

For any football organization to have sustainable success in the sporting and business arms of football, it needs to start with the practice of good governance.

The first step of good governance in football organizations is the separation of powers, responsibilities, and roles.

The owners or members of the football organization should appoint or vote the chairperson or president of the board/executive committee who will then appoint other members of the board/executive committee.

The board/executive committee appoints a CEO to head the day-to-day operations of the football organization.

The owners or members, board/executive committee, and management of the football organization should have powers, responsibilities, and roles that are documented and separate from each other.

  • An illustration showing separation of powers from owners, board and management.

Some of the simple governance checklist questions for the majority of football organizations in Uganda are;

Who are the owners?

Are board/executive committee members trained to perform board roles?

Does the football organization have documented policies, procedures, and a constitution?

Are decisions and policies quickly and effectively communicated?

Do all members of the football organization have documented role descriptions, clear objectives, and regular appraisals?

Do board members, management, and staff attend regular and collective training sessions to ensure individual and organizational development?

Are core competencies for each position documented and positions filled with competent individuals?

Football organizations in Uganda need to adopt the practice of good governance because it creates an environment of efficiency.

Although football operates in a different environment, football organizations in Uganda need to benchmark against some of the best performing corporate companies in Uganda because they have managed to show that corporate governance is indeed the foundation to successful sustainability.

The taxation dilemma of football in Uganda.

“In this world, nothing can be certain except death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin

Taxes is one of the most hated expenses that most individuals and companies always complain about and/or try to avoid.

Some avoid taxes in a legally accepted way, others are smart enough to transfer it to their customers while the rest illegally avoid paying taxes either intentionally or through ignorance.

The majority of football stakeholders in Uganda have been ignorant about their tax obligations until the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) communicated that football clubs are supposed to start remitting Pay As You Earn (P.A.Y.E) for all their employees.

As usual, most tax announcements are met with complaints yet football stakeholders should have a positive attitude towards meeting all tax obligations, and here’s why.

By August 2020, the majority of sectors in Uganda had resumed operating post the COVID-19-induced lockdown but, football was still on hold.

Football in Uganda greatly contributes a lot to the economy but it’s not documented for the government to be aware of the facts.

For those of us that work in football, our livelihoods depend on it but unfortunately, we haven’t taken the necessary steps to show the government how football contributes to Uganda’s economy.

By now, we have learned that the government of Uganda prioritizes the sectors that contribute to the economy.

A very good example would be the transport sector of commuter taxis and Boda Bodas, they operate in an informal sector but are customers of the fuel companies that pay a lot of taxes.

It’s easy to see why the transport sector was allowed to resume earlier than football yet it also has the risk of crowding.

Football stakeholders in Uganda should accept that complying with tax regulations would enable the government to know what they contribute to the economy and how to support the growth of football.

The other reason is the ability for football to get tax holidays, however, this is only possible when the government is able to know the potential of football’s contribution to the economy.

Tax holidays in football would encourage economic activity and foster growth, stimulate foreign investment and increase tax revenue in the long run.

This is where football in Uganda finds itself in a tax dilemma. Is it tax holidays before taxes?

For football in Uganda to be on the safe side, it would have to be paying taxes first and then lobbying for tax holidays.

Thank you for reading!

Managing Finances for Football in Uganda.

Football organizations need money to operate yet it’s a very scarce resource because of the tight competition involved in acquiring it.
To beat the tight competition, football organizations in Uganda must have good financial management practices.

Managing finances transparently, efficiently
and effectively is essential to ensure continued income and growth for any football organization.

Mentioning good financial management practices and the majority of Ugandans in the same sentence is almost equivalent to mentioning water and oil in the same space. The two hardly mix!

Financial literacy is supposed to be taught from the infancy stage using the same effort as reading, writing, etiquette, and all the other lessons that are taught in that period of human growth.

Unfortunately, the majority of Ugandans don’t undergo financial literacy that would enable us to practice good financial management. As we get older, we struggle to manage personal finances yet besides, we have football organizations to manage.

A friend of mine named Peter traveled with his family and in-laws to Kabale to celebrate Christmas. As the norm usually has it in most Ugandan cultures, his parents gave his niece 10,000 Uganda shillings as pocket money on the way back.

Along the way, the excited niece and the mother planned on how to use the money and settled for the idea of buying roasted chicken to enjoy the road trip.
They gladly requested Peter that should he come across a selling point for roasted chicken, he should stop so that they spend their money.

Concerned about their choice on how to spend the money, Peter asked the sister in law and niece whether eating chicken was their main need.

Of course, his question wasn’t treated in a good way but he exercised his authority to inform them that he wasn’t going to stop.

The above scenario of impulsive spending speaks to the majority of us Ugandans yet we are required to manage finances in the organizations that we serve.

Another misconception among we Ugandans, it that good financial management practices is a job for people employed in the finance department yet it’s every individual that is part of an organization.

In June 2020, the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) approved that $1.5 million will be sent out to each member association as COVID-19 relief aid.

Football clubs in Uganda are already demanding for the money to pay off salaries and in typical Ugandan financial management fashion, there are already articles published to show how the money should be spent.

The money is not meant to bail out only football clubs but the entire football family of FUFA’s 34 members.

I can understand that football clubs in Uganda have been badly affected by COVID-19 and need money to pay salaries but I am very sure the majority of football clubs have always had inconsistencies in paying salaries.

I am not sure about the instructions but, If I had to decide, I would ensure that $1.5 million is spent on activities that will lead to growing or attracting competent human capacity within football and infrastructure that would lead to sustainable income within football.

For example, there’s no club with a training ground worthy of a professional football club in Uganda.

How many football clubs in Uganda lack training facilities? How many football clubs spend money on renting or hiring poor training facilities?

If part of that money were to be used to construct modern football training facilities in some parts of the country, would clubs still have to rent or hire training facilities as a cost? Would owning training facilities enable clubs to make money in the long run?

We need to prioritize the training of good financial management practices within football in Uganda.

It’s never too late and, will save us the burden that comes with the ignorance of managing finances for football in Uganda.

Mutualized Services would Develop Football in Uganda.

Mutualized services in football are when two or more football clubs use the same service as a solution to solve a common problem.

The football clubs involved will put aside their rivalry to use a common service as a solution that would help them to grow.

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It’s believed that in the late 1990’s SC Villa, Express FC, and KCCA FC formed an association named V.E.K because they weren’t happy about the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) paying them less money from the Nile Breweries league sponsorship.


The three clubs approached Hedex for sponsorship and played a tournament in form of a super cup.


In that example, three clubs had a common problem of less income from sponsorship then united to attract a common sponsorship service as the solution.

Football in Uganda has very many problems. Clubs are faced with countless challenges that keep increasing every other year.

Some of the problems faced by clubs include; lack of training and match day facilities, lack of competent human personnel, and poor governance.

The majority of the problems faced by football clubs in Uganda, can’t be solved by each of the clubs on their own because the cost would be unaffordable.


KCCA FC’s 2018-2022 strategic plan shows that the club needs an estimated $2.5 million to construct a stadium at their current location in Lugogo but has so far got about $600,000 to start the first phase of stadium construction.


On having the funds available to start construction, KCCA FC’s chairman Martin Ssekajja was quoted by the press to have said that, “We would like to call upon sponsors, fans and KCCA FC well-wishers who can lend a helping hand to come through. We are going to create an app that everyone will use to donate their money for this project and we shall account for every penny.”


The entire process shows that KCCA FC is struggling to raise funds to construct a stadium that meets international standards.


KCCA FC can use mutualized services to partner with one of their rivals like SC Villa or Express FC to combine the efforts that would be required to raise the funds to construct a stadium and share the venue.


Mutualized services can be extended with negotiating for shirt sponsors, sleeve sponsors, stadium naming rights, and partners.


These would enable KCCA FC and the other club to earn more because they would be offering more in terms of numbers.


It might sound impossible because of the rivalry between KCCA FC and Express FC or SC Villa but rivalries like AC Milan and Inter Milan in Italy have used mutualized benefits to share a stadium, and are planning to construct a modern stadium very soon.


The other mutualized services idea that would benefit KCCA FC is the size of the land on which they are planning to construct a stadium.


Would KCCA FC get more if they partnered with the Kampala Rugby Club?

Do KCCA FC and Kampala Rugby Club have similar problems that can be solved with a similar solution?

Mutualized services should be the leverage used by clubs to grow themselves and develop football in Uganda.

NB: Good governance and strategic management need to be in practice if clubs are to get the best out of mutualized services.

Thank you for reading!